path: root/2020/subtitles/emacsconf-2020--03-idea-to-novel-superstructure-emacs-for-writing--questions--bala-ramadurai.vtt

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I have the pad open. So, I can start.

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Do you have occasions to use Emacs for
multilingual text composition?

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How do you deal with spell-checking?

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I have written only in English. For
English, Emacs works great.

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Spell-check works great.

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I have not used it for any other languages.

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I have indeed tried local South Indian
language, but only the script

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I could get, but not the spell-checker,
really. I've not really figured it out.

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So that was my trial to answer
the first question.

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The second question is: "is it possible
to align the subcolumns

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and headings and subheadings?"

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Oh boy. That's a good one. I actually
felt the lack of having the...

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The theme I had was great for... It
looked like a novel

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when I'm typing on the novel itself,

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but when I expand into the subtrees,

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it sort of goes haywire. It's a bit hacky.

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You can probably switch to a monospace font,

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and that works better than

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the font that I have demoed it.

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You can perhaps try monospace font

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and it should work, I think,

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as far as I know.

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So, that's the second question.

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The third question is maybe there should
be an Emacs for Writing

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mailing list, an online writer's workshop?

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This is a great one.

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I have conducted an online writer's workshop

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here in India. Of course, it wasn't

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an Emacs-focused workshop. We used
Notion as the tool. It worked pretty good.

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for people who are not aware of Emacs
and how to use Emacs, the keystrokes,

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the fact that I wasn't using the mouse
unnerved them.

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It was a scary experience for most people.

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I had to switch to Notion.

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People used that as a template

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and then they could type it out.

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It wasn't my perfect experience. I liked
the Emacs Org Mode experience much better.

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The next question is, "How do you share
drafts of your novel?

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If you use pandoc to export to Word,
etc., how do you incorporate feedback

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on the document back into Org?"

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Thank you for the kind words.

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Yes, it is a problem.

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This is my ??, and I have a dedication
to Spacemacs also and the Emacs Org Mode

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community in there. I don't know if you
can see it.

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Probably not.

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I did export it to Word.

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My editor did complain that there were a
whole bunch of things,

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that it wasn't convenient for her.

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So I tried having the raw Org Mode
itself in a DOC embedded,

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and I will do a copy and paste.

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Didn't work so well either.

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So I'm still on the edge on
how do I do this.

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Should I train my editor
to use Org Mode

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in Gitlab or one of those

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other tools, which is not a great
experience?

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But... I don't know. It could be
tricky for working with people

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who are not well-versed with Emacs.

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Pandoc is very, very useful in
converting it to PDF

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and integrating it with LaTeX, the
styling, formatting into e-reader,

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EPUB format. For all that, Pandoc works
great. You can customize it

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and of course there's a lot of support
in the community

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for any style changes that you want to
make, any images that you want to add.

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It works great.

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That was my trial to answer the pandoc question.

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"Can you show exported PDF of
any of your novels?"

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Unfortunately, it's still
not published, so I'm...

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I will put it and
share it on the community,

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or part of this in the schedule itself.
Thank you for the question.

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Unfortunately, it's not yet published,
so I'm unable to publish the exported PDF.

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But I'll make a test of an open-source
novel that I'm working on

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I will definitely publish that so that
you can see

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how it works also.

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Can you text-wrap in the columns?

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I have not found a way to do
text-wrap in the columns.

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That only shows my limitation
in config setup,

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but I'm sure people can figure this out

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That's a good one. I would have loved to
have it.

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Every time I want to write more on the
headline,

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I would get out of the column-view mode
and I would do the typing and expand it,

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and then come back into the column view
when I want to set the other meta parameters.

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So that's how I manage without the
text-wrapping feature built into column.

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But I think it's a great idea to
have text wrap.

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Did I leave out any questions?
I don't think so.

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[Amin]: I think there's at least one
question on IRC,

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which I shall read to you.

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[Bala]: Please, can you do that? Thank you.

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[Amin]: So they asked, "How do you collaborate
with others while writing your novel?

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For example, sharing your file and
getting feedback."

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Okay. Good question. So far, I have
used... Let's see...

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What did I use...
This is a crazy hack.

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But it's a long-winded way of...

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Right now we're working on an e-book for
sustainability

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and kids contribute their stories into
this long Org Mode file

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and I want my editors to see it

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so what we have done, actually, is with
the tags and all that, I have actually

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pasted it into Google Docs

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so that my collaborators and

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editors can see it.

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That's my current solution.
It's not elegant.

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I'm trying to see if I can use Python
code to make the copy and paste work,

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but it's not so elegant for now.

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I don't know how to work this out,

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but this is my hack. That is,

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the entire Org Mode text, I would paste
it into

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Google Docs

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so that my collaborators and editors

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can see it. Whenever they edit it, I ask
them not to make any changes

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to the Org Mode tags.

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So just copy the entire text

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and put it back into my Org Mode file

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and export it using Pandoc into a PDF

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and since it's synced to Google Drive

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it shows up in the Google Drive

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and then the collaborators can see
the PDF/EPUB

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if they want to open it up

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in their own space.

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It's very very hacky and I think
primitive, Stone Age sort of solution.

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I did see a Python solution.

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to at least help me with
the copying and paste.

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I'm still working on
how do I convert this.

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Interconvertability is
driving me nuts.

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I think most of the questions

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are around interconvertability.

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This is sort of what I have right now.

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Any other questions, Amin,

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on IRC or not?

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[Amin]: Let's see. I think that's about it.

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[Bala]: Okay. Cool. That was fun.

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Thank you so much to

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the organizers of Emacs conference,

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and the community at large,

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the Org Mode community and the Emacs
community for helping me out.

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Thank you so much.

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Thanks for the opportunity
as well.

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[Amin]: And thank you, Bala, for your
awesome talk.

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[Bala]: Thanks. Thanks a lot, Amin.